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The TeX/LaTeX site based on the StackOverflow model is now in public beta mode. That means that anyone can participate. So head on over and ask all those TeX questions that have been annoying you since you first learnt that latex can be fun.
The web address is: http://tex.stackexchange.com
The meta site is: http://meta.tex.stackexchange.com (where, of course, I expect everyone to vote for my suggestion for the site name).
As if further enticement were needed, let me point out that a couple of the people there actually write packages and are involved in the LaTeX3 project, so there are experts there as well as the usual weirdos like yours truly.
@Andrew: Ah, you beat me to it.
@Everyone else: beware, you can waste way too much time reading the questions and answers and learning about neat tricks on that site.
@Willie: don't tell them that!
Hmm, but perhaps it's worth listing a select few of the questions. You can learn:
and that's just for starters. You can also learn about the difference between \def and \newcommand, how to check for optional arguments (something that'd be useful here!), and get a few sneak previews of what LaTeX3 will be like.
Andrew brought up a good question by email: should we have a banner/sidebar link to tex.SE (and/or math.SE) on MO? I have no objection to having such a link up for a few days or a week, but I want to get a sense of whether other people would find it annoying before actually posting it.
On a related note... isn't the sidebar quite noisy currently? Does anyone use the list of recent tags? Can that least and the list of awarded badges be moved to some other 'News' page? Why is there a box explaining how to write math on the main page, on which one cannot write math?
To clarify: the original suggestion was for a emporary banner, may be a day or two.
I'd certainly like to see both tex.SE and math.SE in the list of "alternative sites" in the FAQ, and given that they are somewhat closer to MO in style if nothing else, I'd vote for them having links somewhere discrete on the main page.
But perhaps we should wait until tex/math.SE stabilizes? At the very least, I am under the impression that at some point past public beta, those sites will move to a different and more permanent domain, instead of their current status as sub-domains of SE.
@Mariano: maybe you should bring this up in a new thread?
I imagine that when tex/math.SE get their proper domain names then all the old links will still point there and there'll be some fancy URL rewriting to ensure that everything acts as it should, so I see no harm and considerable benefit from announcing early and linking early. After all, we want these sites to thrive if only to take the questions from MO that we don't want there!
That's a fair point. I withdraw my initial skepticism on the timing and now support the inclusion of those sites in the FAQ, or somewhere appropriate.
Yes, I think we should put a banner up for a few days or a week.
@Mariano: yes, the sidebar is pretty noisy. I don't ever look at recent badges or recent tags. The "How to write math" occupies what is meant to be an ad space, so it is insensitive to whether there's an editor on the page ... I guess I can hide it with javascript on pages without an editor, but there's no way to get it to actually not load. Would it actually help the homepage look cleaner if we removed that sidebar content? I feel like people aren't bothered by material that's not at the top of the sidebar. To get a preview, paste this into your location bar:
javascript:$("#recent-tags,#recent-badges,#sidebar-bottom").hide();void(0);
Presumably the "related questions" sidebar (on individual question pages) is more useful than it is clutter. I think I've clicked through it fruitfully on occasion and I don't remember ever being annoyed by it. It also pushes the "How to write math" sidebar down, so that it's closer to where you might actually want to write math.
@Anton, I love it :) You are right that the related questions on question pages is considerably more useful. Maybe you could hide those three things in the sidebar and see if someone complains?
(@WillieWong, yup, sorry for parasitising (?) the thread!)
Given the support (and lack of objection) to a system message with links, I've posted a system message linking to tex.SE and math.SE (due to expire in three days). I tried to avoid sounding like somebody is paying me to post the links, but might have failed.
I vaguely recall some objections to prominently featuring faq to new users or checklists including "Is this homework?" etc as a condition of posting a questions, on the grounds that those features may be annoying to serious mathematicians. But how come having a near equivalent of that on every page (including recent questions and answers), directed at everyone, is kosher?
I have almost learned to mentally filter out the annoying reddish strip at the top of the screen, but whenever I fail, I can't help remarking to myself that I will not like to see "lower level MO": if anything, I'd like to see MO that is higher level. If you want to advertise new sites, perhaps, just posting a neutral message like "Two new stackexchange sites [address] and [address] have opened", on the front page only, would have been better.
For those interested, the tex.SX site has now launched, with a snazzy new design.
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